World Bank project-financed research on population, health, and nutrition

This report on World Bank project-financed research on population, health and nutrition (PHN) is based on a review of 109 staff appraisal reports for projects financed in fiscal years 1980-91 and on selected interviews with task managers. The report looks at only the simplest dimensions of project-financed research and examines research outcomes of only a few projects. Among conclusions tentatively reached: (1) more than 90 percent of PHN projects from fiscal years 1980-91 financed research. (2) Bank experience with project-financed research in the PHN sector has been extremely variable: quite successful in some countries and almost a total failure in others. Even so, some striking successes justify continued efforts to incorporate research into projects and to encourage use of that research to improve both national PHN policy and follow-on Bank financed projects. (3) Personalities make a difference, both among borrowers and within the Bank. Often successes are associated with a particular person within the government or the Bank who has taken a continuing personal interest in encouraging research. (4) Supervision is crucial to good results. Supervision must be frequent enough to keep the research component on time and of good quality. For quality research to be completed, it is important that those responsible for supervision attach a high priority to research even if it is not a large part of the project in terms of budget. (5) Research that leads to a project outcome - such as research needed to justify release of funds or for a follow-on project - is more likely to be undertaken and completed than is research with a more general objective. (6) In countries where the institutional capability exists, using a national institution to review research proposals and to administer research grants can be quite effective. Experience indicates that some sort of peer-group review produces better research. (7) There is probably room for more best-practices workshops where PHN staff can exchange experiences about successful design and supervision of project-financed research components. But usually it will be necessary to retain experienced consultants to help design substantial research components. (8) More systematic collection and dissemination of project-financed research is justified, given the considerable amounts of money and effort devoted to it.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,ICT Policy and Strategies,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Scientific Research&Science Parks

The Drama of Bioterror: Paranoia and the Rhetoric of Defense

This study provides an account of how a rhetoric of bioterrorism developed and investigates its consequences. Currently, two competing ways of talking about bioterror, the skeptical and the paranoid, have been obscured because biosecurity researchers infrequently consider how particular historical and imagined events come to be defined as examples of bioterrorism. These rhetorical styles and their associated attitudes responded to a recurring problem in the history of biothreats – that there is rarely enough evidence to give clear accounts of the presence and origin of particular threats. As a result, conjectures become part of a unified history of bioterror, washing out the actual complexity of describing these rare events. The ease with which events of the late twentieth century are reimagined in the terms of the twenty-first century war on terror as well as the propensity for furious legislative and media response to the threat of bioterror allows real and imagined bioterror to capture a special place in the popular imagination. Bioterror taps into a problematic narrative that has structured the United States’ relationship with biological weapons since the 1960’s. To make visible these competing attitudes, this dissertation considers how acts of defining operate as rhetorical processes and how this process became exploitable in the specific case of biological terrorism. To that end, three major cases are considered: (1) President Richard Nixon intervened in a public, political debate about the dangers of biological weapons testing though an act of redefinition by which he renamed the US bioweapon program from "weapons development" to "defensive research" and successfully shifted from a rhetoric of offense to a rhetoric of defense with lasting consequences; (2) Biodefense experts in the 1990's redefined a nationally obscure salmonella outbreak in the 1980’s as the first bioterror attack on American soil; (3) Following the 2001 anthrax mailings, the FBI defined a government scientist as an object of suspicion, Othering him to the point of suicide

Domestic Relations

Covers cases on divorce—jurisdiction to grant custody and alimony in Washington

Artificial Insemination: Its Place in Washington Law

Artificial insemination has found its place, or at least its beginning, in American society. It has not yet found its niche in American law. This comment is an attempt to indicate and speculate just what that niche would be under the present cases, statutes, and policies of the Washington court and legislature

An approach to popular medicine in Ubrique (1996-1997)

La necesidad de curar una enfermedad es consustancial a la evolución de la especie humana. En el proceso de desarrollo como civilización, los mecanismos empleados para conseguir este fin han ido parejos con el aumento de conocimientos en diferentes ramas del saber. Conforme iba avanzando la técnica, otros mecanismos más antiguos quedaban relegados en segundo término o, incluso, eran definitivamente dados de lado en beneficio del saber emergente. En Medicina, en cambio, la esencia de la enfermedad, no bien conocida o asimilada por las personas enfermas y sanas, ha permitido que técnicas, remedios y formas de actuar que se podría creer quedaron superadas por otra Medicina más tecnificada hayan perdurado y sean incluso ampliamente utilizadas en la actualidad. El lugar escogido para la realización del trabajo es Ubrique, donde se han entrevistado 43 personas que han aportado información diversa tanto sobre enfermedades o problemas de salud como sobre los remedios más útiles.The need to cure illness is inherent to evolution of human mankind. In its developmental process as a civilization, the means for this aim have accompanied the increasing knowledge in all areas of wisdom. As technique improved, ancient methods were forgotten or relegated by the emergent knowledge. Regarding Medicine, on the contrary, the essence of illness having not been known or accepted by healthy and sick has allowed techniques, remedies and methods to live through modern Medicine and be used nowadays. The chosen setting for this work is Ubrique, where 43 interviewed people have furnished us with information on disorders or health problems and useful remedies

Washington Legislation—1961; Antitrust: The Washington Antitrust Laws

The following articles, the work of the faculty of the School of Law, the Attorney General, two members of the Washington Bar and a student, constitute the first academic comment on the laws of 1961. For obvious reasons, these articles are not represented to the reader as a complete survey of the legislative session. Rather, they are a compilation of comments on acts which the writers have found to be important, timely, or merely interesting. The Antitrust section considers the Consumer Protection Act of 1961 and its impact on Washington antitrust law

Economic analysis of World Bank education projects and project outcomes

Research reported in this paper tests the hypothesis that Bank education projects for which the project appraisal documents are judged"good"have a higher probability of leading to successful outcomes than projects for which the appraisals are judged"poor."The research draws on project document evaluations carried out between 1993 and 1998. Analysis shows a strong relationship between the quality of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis and the quality of project outcomes. Economic analysis of projects is a tool for weeding out potentially poor investments and selecting potentially worthwhile ones. The economic analysis can be used to select among alternative projects or to redesign project components so that they yield more and produce better outcomes. Good practice education projects require good economic analysis--analysis of demand, of the counterfactual private sector supply, of the project's fiscal impact, of lending fungibility--and strong sector work before project design.Curriculum&Instruction,Urban Services to the Poor,Poverty Assessment,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance

The Rhetoric of Violence, Religion, and Purity in India’s Cow Protection Movement

In India there has been a recent increase in violence and intolerance towards people who eat beef. While India has a fairly wide Cow Protection Act that bars the slaughter of female cows and calves, many areas have permitted slaughter of bulls and bullocks for centuries. Hindu religion has no doctrinal proscriptions against the consumption of beef in particular, although it has borrowed heavily from Jainism in the last century, arguing that the concept of ahimsa (nonviolence) forbids such slaughter and consumption of beef. Violence is exacted upon those who would dare eat beef—notably Muslims and lower castes—further politicizing the issue. This paper explores the various claims and legitimations of violence regarding the tradition of abstaining from beef. These include arguments of religious purity, racial biases, caste, and cultural arguments which have been put forth in defense of or in condemnation of beef-eaters. I argue that, in the case of such regulations of “authentic” Hindu traditions (like the sanctity of the cow), purity concerns are directly tied to Hindu nationalist ideologies